Roundup: Female Founder Successes To Celebrate This Week

March 8 may be International Women’s Day but we are celebrating women all week, year long!
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

This week, we highly respect Sara Blakely for joining Forbes’ World Billionaire’s list thanks to her company Spanx. The 41 year old is the youngest person on the list – and worth ten figures without the aid of a husband or an inheritance, and she still owns 100% of the company she founded in 2000.

TripTrotting raised $1M Series A from investors including Google Ventures, Mark Suster of GRP Partners and Launchpad LA, Dave McClure of 500 Startups, Bill Gross of Idealab, Safa Rashtchy, and Eric Chen according to TechCrunch. TripTrotting co-founder Shana Zheng is quoted in the TechCrunch piece.

Kismet, a finalist at the 2012 Women 2.0 PITCH Startup Competition, announced raising seed funding from Triple Point Ventures (which led the round), NEA, and an incredible list of angels including Shiva Rajaraman (Head of Consumer at YouTube), Steph Hannon (an early PM on Gmail), Roham Gharegozlou and others. Kismet was co-founded by Michelle Norgan, now their Chief Product Officer.

Her key message was for women to support each other by providing honest feedback to each other promptly, and to mentor/coach each other whether possible. Find a way to do it, from the day-to-day workplace to hiring/interviewing.

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About the writer: Angie Chang co-founded Women 2.0 in 2006. She currently serves as Editor-In-Chief of Women 2.0 and is working to mainstream women in high-growth, high-tech entrepreneurship. Previously, Angie held roles in product management, web UI design, and entrepreneurship. In 2008, Angie launched Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners, asking that guys come as the “+1” for once. Angie holds a B.A. in English and Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. Follow her on Twitter at @thisgirlangie.